By default, Google Ads will include mobile apps in your display network campaigns. These are low performing and can dominate your placements. Here’s the only way to exclude mobile apps in Google Ads. Unfortunately, you can only exclude these placements in Google Ads online interface as they come up in your “Where ads showed” report. You’ll need to download and install Google Ads editor to be able to exclude the entire channel.
In order to see where your ads are showing, go to your ad group and on the left had menu click on content. This will expand and at the bottom of this list you can see “where ads showed”. This is where you can tighten your targeting to improve your results on Google Display Ads. You can always manually exclude mobiles apps in Google Ads as they appear in this list.
The easiest way to exclude mobile apps placement in Google Ads is to use the editor. That way you can exclude the entire channel.
You can download Google Ads Editor here:
https://ads.google.com/home/tools/ads-editor/
How to exclude mobile apps in Google Ads Editor:
- Open Google Ads Editor and select the account you want to exclude apps from
- In the “Manage” window bottom left expand the “Keywords and targeting” section
- Within this menu select “Mobile app categories, Negative”
- Click the “+Add negative mobile app category” button
- Select campaign or ad group level and select the options you want to exclude mobile apps from
- Select “All Apps” from the list and select “OK”
- Select “Post” to push these changes live to Google Ads
That’s it! In a few steps you’ve excluded mobile apps from your display campaigns.
For more information on how to optimize your targeting in Google Display Network, Click Here.